


The Sun Will Never Come (So Come On Let Me In)

by moments



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 11:06:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moments/pseuds/moments
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry likes exploring the subway system; Louis likes Harry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sun Will Never Come (So Come On Let Me In)

**Author's Note:**

> everything about the new york subway system is completely accurate i set it in nyc because it's where i live and the london train system is too confusing.
> 
> title from fun.'s out on the town.

Louis works his own hours. He loves being an artist and having a studio to himself to muck around in for as long or little as he likes. That’s why it’s 11:03 in the morning on a Tuesday, and he has the last subway car to himself. Well, almost to himself. There’s a woman with a shopping cart full of plastic bags waiting in front of the door nearest him, and across the car, a boy with curly hair and jeans that looked like they haven’t been washed for days.

“Broadway Junction next stop, Broadway Junction,” the door opener person-or conductor, or whoever announces stuff-announces. Louis isn’t educated in the vocabulary of the New York City subway system. The doors open, shopping cart woman gets off, and he watches her try to haul her baggage up the stairs. The doors shut and the train rushes back into the tunnel again. Curly hair boy continues to star at the car rental service ad above the seats in front of him. Louis finds nothing about zipcar remotely intriguing. 

He’s gotten on the 10:42 A train at 14th Street almost every morning for the past three years. He’s seen shopping cart woman for the past two, but never the boy with out of place hair and boots that definitely needed replacing. Not a lot of people he’s seen have stuck to the A train routine he has, but he thinks he’d like this boy to try. 

They’re nearing the end of the line when Louis realizes he’s been staring at ripped jeans boy for the past fifteen minutes. He’s not sure how many people have gotten on or off, but he’s sure the boy’s eyes never once shifted from the ad. It aggravates Louis. He’d very much like to find out what color the boy’s eyes are. 

Static crackles from the speakers, and the announcer person’s voice is too loud when she lets them all know that they’ve reached Ozone Park. Louis sticks his hands in his pockets and waits for the doors to open. The boy finally gets up when the doors slide open and the air of the outdoor station fills the car. Louis shivers and buttons up his jacket when he notices the boy is wearing nothing more than a t-shirt. He heads for the stairs. The boy follows him. 

Feet hitting the pavement, Louis starts in the direction of his studio, walking slowly, hoping ripped jeans and curly hair is following him. He almost misses it when he catches the sight of the boy across the street in the corner of his eye. The funny thing is that he’s not going to work, or a store, or even a bakery. He’s not waiting for a bus, or someone to pick him up in a car; he’s taking the stairs up to the downtown side of the A train station. Louis doesn’t understand. They just got off the train at the end of Brooklyn, and now the boy is on a station platform waiting for a train back to Manhattan. Louis waits for the light to change, and crosses the street. 

He keeps his distance. The station is fairly empty, with only a few babysitters struggling to keep little kids away from the edge of the platform. Louis figures it’s a good buffer between him and the boy. He wishes he could put a name to the face. From where he’s standing, the most he can tell is that the boy’s eyes are light enough to be anything but brown. 

He wonders what his story is. Everyone has one. Louis thinks he’d like to hear the story of the boy with curly hair, ripped jeans, and what he can now see is a black Rolling Stones shirt with a rip on the right shoulder. He’d like to know what makes him lonely enough to be taking the subway both ways on a Tuesday morning at eleven o’clock. It all makes him wonder. 

When a train finally rolls into the station, Louis thinks maybe he can risk getting a little closer. He sits down a few colored seats away from a babysitter at the edge of a row. The boy sits across from Louis, five seats down. His eyes are green, and they refuse to meet Louis’. 

The boy takes them seven stops from Ozone Park to Euclid Avenue where he gets off and sits down on a bench. His eyes stay closed, but Louis can tell he isn’t sleeping. The corners of his mouth turn up slightly every time a train passes, but he doesn’t get on any of them. From Louis’ spot at the other end of the bench, he counts six A trains and four C trains that pass before the boy gets up and boards a local. Louis just barely has time to step onto the train before the doors close and they speed into nothingness. The boy stands this time, and only waits four stops before getting off and crossing to the uptown side. 

They go from Broadway Junction, back to Euclid Avenue, to Utica Avenue, and back to Broadway Junction again before Louis gets slightly fed up and wants to talk to him.

He wonders how you go about starting a conversation with a complete stranger you’ve easily been stalking. The boy isn’t reading a book, and doesn’t make eye contact. Louis supposes he could make a comment about one of the subway ads the boy seems to find so interesting, but first impressions are everything. Though he supposes if that’s true, he probably isn’t making a good one by following someone he doesn’t know all over Queens. 

They’ve been on an A train for half an hour when Louis decides to say something.

What he doesn’t expect to say is, “What’s your name?” The boy doesn’t reply. Louis doesn’t blame him.

“I just mean like,” he pauses, “I kept referring to you as ‘the boy’ in my head and I probably figured it’s only polite to put a name to your face, yeah?”

“Why do you live in New York?” The boy asks, eyes still facing forward.

“How do you know I wasn’t born and raised here like the millions of others in this city?” Louis doesn’t get it.

The boy’s lips curve upward into a half smirk. “Your accent and vocabulary seem to speak otherwise.”

“Not like you’re from here either.”

“Never said I was.”

Louis doesn’t say anything. The boy doesn’t either. The lights in the tunnel change from white to an array of red, blue, and green. They’re under the river. 

“What’s your story?” Louis finally asks as they’re pulling out of the Canal Street station.

The boy turns toward him and extends a hand. “I’m Harry,” he says as Louis grabs the extended hand and shakes. 

“Louis.” 

Harry faces forward again and smiles. “I never asked.”

“I’d like you to know anyway.”

The train can barely be called empty by the time they stop at West 4th Street, and is full of people and teenagers leaving work and school early by the time they’re out and on their way back uptown. 

Harry gets off at 14th Street and sits down on the flat part of the bronze feet statue. His eyes close and he sways gently to the sound of a subway performer playing the guitar. Louis feels lost and awkward standing next to him, so he leaves.

It’s two o’clock in the afternoon. He walks away and stops himself from looking back.

\---

It keeps happening. 

Louis knows he can’t put off working for much longer before he reaches his deadlines and has nothing to show for them. There are important people waiting on his finished pieces in official looking clothing who work for even more official people, but there’s also a boy in the subway waiting for him. He resolves to dedicate two week days to Harry; he has to go to his studio on weekends, but it’s not as bad as he figures it could be. 

Sometimes they venture up and down the blue line; sometimes Harry takes them onto the C train, sits for fifteen or so stops, and then switches to the J train, leading them all the way to Jamaica Center. Louis figures if Harry could, he would probably switch to the airtrain to JFK and catch a flight going somewhere else in the world. Louis wonders why he doesn’t. 

\---

It’s 2:56 in the afternoon on a Thursday when Louis turns to Harry and asks, “why the subway?”

Harry’s eyes close and the corners of his mouth turn up into a slow smile. “Better than the streets if you know what I mean.”

“Oh.” Louis doesn’t know what to say.

Harry shrugs. “Not really a big deal. I’ve managed.”

“But what if one day you can’t? I mean, where do you go at night if it gets cold?”

“A true wizard never reveals all his secrets,” Harry says slowly, mouth widening into a smile big enough to show his dimples.

“Oh so you’re a wizard now?” Louis’ smiling too.

“I can be anyone I want. No one knows the difference.”

Louis wants to scream, “I do!” He wants to wrap his arms around Harry and never let go. They say nothing for the rest of the ride. Harry lets them off at 14th Street late afternoon. Louis goes home without another word. 

He plans conversations in his head. He writes scripts upon scripts of things he could say, but never says any of them. Louis figures he could probably be a playwright by this point. 

“What’s your favorite color?” It’s a simple question, but Louis figures it’s worth asking.

“I like blue.”

“What shade?”

“Sometimes like the sea in the middle of a storm, but then again, sometimes kind of like your eyes.”

“Those are two very different colors, Harry.”

His eyes are closed again. “Maybe that was the point.”

Louis switches to the L train from 14th Street and gets off at Union Square. He manages to find a bookstore and a small blue notebook the color of a coral reef on a sunny day. He buys it for Harry. It’s the only way he can think to mix both the murky blue of the sea and the light turquoise of his eyes. 

He waits a few days.

“What do you think about when you close your eyes?” Louis asks hesitantly. It’s been a few trips since they’ve talked.

“I like to try and find happy thoughts.”

“And have you managed to yet?”

“No, but I’ll let you know when I do.”

“Maybe you can write them in here,” Louis takes out the notebook and a set of three ballpoint pens he found in one of his kitchen drawers. “I’ve heard writing helps the lost souls find a way home.”

“I’ve already found my way home, but thank you,” Harry answers, pocketing the gift. He closes his eyes. Louis does too.

\---

Louis finds Harry lying next to a staircase the next morning. They’re at 14th street, as usual, and it’s eleven o’clock in the morning, as usual, but Harry doesn’t get on any trains. His eyes are closed and his face shows no emotion. Louis sits down on the nearest bench and waits. 

People are pointing at Harry and making notions to call 911. Louis wants to yell that he isn’t drunk, or hurt, or even unconscious for that matter, but says nothing. 

Two hours pass before Harry gets up and onto a downtown C train. Louis follows him only one stop to West 4th Street, where Harry crosses back over to the uptown side and rides back to 14th street. They sit down on a bench in the white and yellow station for twenty minutes. 

“I want to show you something,” Louis says, standing up.

“Okay.”

“You’re going to have to stand up.”

“Okay.” Harry stands and waits. Neither of them moves for a few minutes. They stand in front of their bench seats and stare at the wall. Louis starts to walk. He takes them out of the New York City MTA system completely, and they walk in silence for three uptown blocks and half an avenue east.

Harry’s always helped him find a way home. Louis thinks it’s time he did the same.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @disasterstyles :o)


End file.
